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Asked by anon-251067 on 1 Apr 2020.
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Martin Coath answered on 1 Apr 2020:
Another very interesting question with potentially a very long answer 🙂 Here are the basics:
Air contains a lot of water (the exact amount is very variable) in the form of water vapour which is invisible. If conditions are right this vapour will form tiny droplets which we see as clouds. If condtions in the clouds are right the tiny droplets will gather together, often they will gather around a dust particle, to form a drop that is heavy enough to fall as rain.
It is way more complicated than that of course, but that is the essential idea.
Did you know that you can encourage rain clouds to form by scattering solid particles in the atmosphere from a plane – a process called ‘cloud seeding’ – Google it!
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Judith Sleeman answered on 1 Apr 2020:
Water evaporates into the air as water vapour when it’s warm. Warm air rises, but when it does this it gets cooler. Then the water vapour condenses again into droplets, as cold air can’t hold the water vapour. First these are clouds and then, as the droplets get bigger, they fall as rain. That’s my really simple (biologists!) view! There was someone in the Big Bang zone a while back who made flavoured clouds: not sure if she is also in the green zone, but would be able to explain far better, I’m sure!
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Philip Denniff answered on 1 Apr 2020:
Watch the video
and read Martin and Judith’s answers at the same time -
Kaitlin Wade answered on 2 Apr 2020:
I’ll resort to reiterating what the fine scientists have already written!
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Michael Schubert answered on 2 Apr 2020:
You’ve had a lot of good answers from other people, but I wanted to add this: if you’re interested in how humans make their own rain (the “cloud seeding” Martin mentioned), here’s a great video:
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